Quine and Wittgenstein on the science/philosophy divide.

The opposition of Wittgenstein and Quine on the issue of philosophy’s continuity with science is quite real. Both views have their weaknesses. In the case of Quine, it is not clear that rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction really entails that the whole of science is relevant to semantic competence. In Wittgenstein’s case, it is not clear that his particular way of drawing the distinction between the conceptual and the factual really escapes Quine’s criticism. Anyhow, it seems clear that the discontinuity thesis must depend on the plausibility of some such distinction.